Capernaum, written and directed by Nadine Labaki - 10 out of 10

Capernaum, written and directed by Nadine Labaki
10 out of 10


Capernaum was not just one of the best films of 2018, as The Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize, the Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for Best Foreign Language Film testify, but one of the best of decade, or the first part of this century.

It touches on many issues, from poverty to under age brides, to human trafficking, immigration, destitute, uneducated families that have too many children and then they cannot care for them, abuse, crime, children forced to take care of other children and some more.
Zain Al Rafeea is sublime in the leading, overwhelming role of Zain, a teenager who might be twelve, we do not know for sure, since his parents have not declared his birth, have no official papers for him and meanwhile, they do not remember the date when he was born and therefore a doctor is asked at one point to evaluate his age.

The physician looks into the boy's mouth, sees that he no longer has any of his first teeth and estimates him to be about twelve or eleven, an age at which he suffers an ordeal, much more than most people have to go through in a lifetime.
The fantastic motion picture starts with the trial of the boy, accused and sentenced for stabbing a man - he calls his victim son of a goat or something similar twice, making the public laugh - who now wants to sue his parents for negligence, having made him suffer so much and he also wants them to have no more children.

They did not just beat, insult and abused this child, for they had many more, who lived in squalor, sleeping three or more on some sort of improvisation, in awful conditions, all of them forced to work, sent on the street with juice that they tried to sell.
Sahar is the eleven years old sister that would eventually be sold to Assaad, an adult who owns a small grocery shop and who is so perverse that he has improper desires for the under age girl.

When he would be called in court, he will mantain that this type of marriage, with girls that are only eleven, happens in the community and there is nothing wrong...Souad, the mother of the too young girl has married at a tender age and she is all right.
Before his sister has been taken to the man that Zain hates, the boy had tried all he could to prevent this calamity, when he saw blood on the bed, he washed the underwear of the sister and gave her his shirt to put in it, to work as a sanitary pad and tried to instruct her, warn the innocent, ignorant girl about the imminent danger that she would be given to that loathsome villain, who would lock her up and abuse her.

When his sister is given away, the boy runs from the "home" and finds some refuge with Rahil, a single mother and illegal immigrant from Ethiopia, who has an infant that seems to be not much older than one year, Yonas, who will become the baby that Zain cares for.
It is more than an awkward, outrageous arrangement, but what else can these people do?

It is tempting to be judgemental and criticize Rahil , the hero's and other parents who bring to this world too many children, but they are uneducated, in many cases their religion forbids any type of birth control.
Rahil loves her boy and when Aspro, a human trafficker and dealer of false documents and other things, insists that he would take the child and place it in a family which will take care of him - certainly selling him - and the mother would benefit too, she refuses although she has no documents and risks arrest.

Indeed, she is arrested and Zain is now left to fend not just for himself, but for the hungry Yonas and we can wonder how they managed to film atrocious scenes - for instance the one where the hero has to tie one of the legs of the infant with a rope, to prevent him from getting into the street to be run over - where the crew has surely taken all the care, but it still looks like the children have had impossible tasks.
Often hard to watch, Capernaum offers so many lessons on life, makes us feel gratitude for what we have, compassion for children like Zain and Yonas, admiration for the film makers, the young or infant actors that have given otherworldly performances.